Undergraduate Curriculum Forum
Minutes
Adanti Student Center, Room 301
Thursday
March 15, 2007
Present:
J. Fields Chair, M. Camron, N. Chrissidis, K. Cummings, D. Flynn, J. Goralski, S. Grubacic, M.
Heidmann, R. Hunter, G. Kowalczyk, T. Lin, N. Marano, J. Mielczarski, R. Mugno, M.
Narumanchi, J. Oppedisano, D. Pettigrew, H. Podna, K. Rondinone, E. Schmitt, C. Weed, D.
Weiss, and E. West.
I.
Call to order 9:35 a.m.
II.
Announcements
 J. Oppedisano announced that P. Oley is in a Hospice facility. Our
prayers are with her.
 D. Pettigrew announced that the 9th annual Faculty Research
Conference will be April 21st.
 C. Weed announced that D. Pettigrew’s book is being published and
events are being held at Liel, France.
 Members from the Strategic Planning Committee in attendance: M.
Diamantis, R. Herron, and C. Thompson.
III.
Approval of minutes of 3/01/2007. Minutes missing attendance, will be
approved at the next meeting.
IV.
Acceptance of standing committee minutes of 3/08/2007.
 WACC – accepted 1/25 & 2/8. The following motions were voted
on:
Motion: Henceforth, committee minutes will be approved by the WACC prior to
submission to UCF.
All approved with 3 abstentions.
Motion: The WACC Writing Contest will be suspended this year.
Motion approved, with one opposition, and 3 abstentions.
Motion: For UCF to approve all of the W courses approved by WACC during the last
few months (Complete list available from WACC).
All approved with 2 abstentions.
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
PRAC – accepted 3/8 minutes
Motion: PRAC by-laws be approved by UCF.
Discussion ensued over whether or not to accept by-laws when not all
by-laws have been accepted and are not uniform. Vote did not occur.

UWIC – accepted 3/8 minutes. Several motions were brought to
UCF.
Motions:
1. The permanent FYE committee is composed of 16 members, with 6 from the
School of Arts and Sciences; 2 from the School of Communication, Information, and
Library Science; and, 1 each from the School of Business, School of Education,
School of Health and Human Services, the Academic Advising Center, the Office of
Assessment, the Office of Faculty Development, the Office of Student Affairs, and
Student Supportive Services.
2. All members of the permanent FYE Committee have voting rights.
3. The permanent FYE committee's proposal for a permanent FYE program is not
binding until it is approved by a university-wide faculty referendum.
A lively discussion ensued about the role of UCF, the role of non-academic members of
FYE, and voting rights for all members or only academic members. Due to time conflicts
(steering committee attendance) a new motion was made:
Motion: The motions on FYE will be tabled to continue discussion.
This motion was passed with a vote of 21-1-1 (approved-opposedabstain).
V.
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Suspended acceptance of other minutes to attend to agenda item
VII.
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NMC
NPIC
Other Reports
Ad hoc Committee on Standards
VI.
Old Business
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Motion to establish an ad hoc committee to review the UCF by-laws.
VII.
Presentation on the Strategic Plan.
Discussion of Strategic Plan ensued. Some ideas about academic
excellence were discussed: smaller class size and more full-time faculty
hires. Also discussed the focus of the university: should we shift from a
comprehensive university to a more focused goal. Should we pick our
goal or will our lack of choice choose the goal for us? A final draft will be
available in April.
VIII.
Adjournment 10:50 a.m
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Undergraduate Curriculum Forum
Minutes
Adanti Student Center, Room 301
Thursday
March 1, 2007
Present:
J. Fields Chair, A. Abugri, N. Chrissidis, C. Coron, S. DiFrancesco, M. Fede, D. Flynn, M.
Geelan, S. Grubacic, M. Heidmann, R. Hunter, G. Kowalczyk, T. Lin, N. Marano, D. Marino, K.
Marsland, J. Mielczarski, R. Mugno, M. Narumanchi, D. Pettigrew, H. Podnar, K. Rondinone, E.
Schmitt, M. Shea, and D. Weiss.
I.
Call to order 9:35 a.m.
II.
Announcements
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III.
S. Williams is present for the First-Year Experience (FYE) discussion.
D. Pettigrew announced a University-wide lecture by Tom Parker on
March 5 at noon.
Cinema du Monde screened “White” and will be screening “Welcome to
Sarajevo” Wednesday, March 14 at 7:30. Film announcements are
available under SCSU events under films.
M. Heidmann said the writing workshop is postponed until August.
E. Schmidt announced the lecture on childhood bilingualism
N. Henderson announced a lecture on the transition between high
school and college.
M. Shea announced his talk on writing workshops from the Faculty
Development Office, Mar 4 at noon in EN B253.
T. Lin announced the 64 Days of Violence. Next week, the lecture on
Toilet-training, gender-neutral bathrooms, March 5 at 7:30 in EN
C112. Check the Women’s Studies website for more details.
J. Fields mentioned A. Schlessinger passed away. Also, a total lunar
eclipse will happen Saturday around sunset and barring weather,
telescopes will be set up at Southern.
Town Hall Meeting from 1-3 (Friday) the pre-ultimate draft.
Approval of minutes of 2/01/2007. (Note: no Meeting 2/15/07).

unanimous approval of minutes from 2/01/07 with one abstention.
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IV.
Other Reports
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V.
Due to the visit from Provost Williams, the minutes will be moved to
address FYE first.
First Year Experience Committee
Discussion ensued about the last FYE meeting. They discussed the
four options: Honors College, LINKS, and two new versions, a common
theme and a disciplined-based model. Questions arose about credit
for students. S. Williams mentioned they are trying to implement
faculty incentives (release time) for future semesters.
Acceptance of standing committee minutes of 2/08/2007 and
2/22/2007.
 NMC – minutes accepted
Motions:
1. Motion to approve revised program proposal, BA-HIS, BS-HIS (with teacher
certification),
2. Motion to approve revised course proposal, HIS 330, Religion and Society in the
Byzantine Empire, and
3. Motion to approve revised course proposal, HIS 343, Modern Eastern Europe
All approved with one abstention.
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NPIC – minutes accepted
PRAC – minutes accepted
UWIC – minutes accepted. Several motions were brought to UCF:
Motion:
HIS 313 is removed from the list of courses satisfying the AUR in World Civilizations.
All approved with one abstention.
Motion
Revised course proposal HIS 242 is accepted.
This motion was not voted on.
 WACC – no votes made during the meeting due to lack of time.
Motion: Henceforth, committee minutes will be approved by the WACC prior to
submission to UCF. The motion was passed unanimously.
Motion: The WACC Writing Contest will be suspended this year.
New Motion: The WACC requested that motions approved of during WACC subcommittee meeting be accepted without needing to be approved by UCF.
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VI.
Discussion ensued. UCF rules dictate that all sub-committee motions must go
through the main UCF body.
No vote was conducted.
Adjournment 10:50 a.m
61
Minutes of the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Standards Document, February 8, 2007.
Present: Rachael Vaters-Carr (Chair), Joe Fields, Mark Heidmann, Michele Thompson.
The Ad-Hoc committee continued its examination and discussion of the forms used by
UCF for various types of proposals. Although most of these forms have been sent to the various
sub-committees of UCF for review, we continued to discuss the development of a Minor
Program Proposal Form and the Revised Minor Program Proposal Form. Discussion included
the need to clarify the titles of the forms to reflect that they refer to a minor in a program, not a
minor revision of a program. It was agreed that the titles should read New Program Proposal for
a Minor, Revised Program Proposal for a Minor, and so on with regard to majors also. An
attempt to combine the new and revised Program forms with the minor in a program forms will
be made for the next meeting.
Having put the question of nouns resembling adjectives behind us we moved on to a
discussion of the information requested on the form. We briefly discussed such points as amount
of room for a list of required courses and we noted that obviously there isn't as much room
needed for this on a form for a proposal regarding a minor as there is for one on a form regarding
a major. Someone asked what sorts of requirements are standard for a minor? It was noted that
History is currently putting through a proposal the main objective of which is to ensure that no
one can get a minor in History with only 100 levels courses but that she has no idea what most
other departments do. Various examples were given and we returned to the catalogue for more
information. From the information found in the catalogue and the examples brought up in
discussion it was determined that minors vary both widely and wildly from department to
department. Apparently here at SCSU minors range from the completely structured with almost
every course mandated to the completely unstructured in which only a certain number of credits
in the discipline is demanded for a minor. It was discussed whether minors should require at
least some upper level courses. There was some discussion that as a practical matter in most
departments there wouldn't be enough 100 level courses for someone to get a minor with only
100 level courses anyway. The fact was brought up that a number of years ago Troy Paddock
tried to get a proposal through UCF to mandate certain things regarding minors campus-wide.
While no one could recall just what the requirements Troy proposed were, it is thought they
included a demand that all minors require a certain number of courses above the 100 level. It
was noted that there should be information presented about UCF guidelines regarding the
differences between 100, 200, 300, and 400 level courses.
The question arose as to how to make the New and Revised Minor in a Program forms
reflect this wide difference in requirements for minors. It was suggested that perhaps the forms
could have spaces to be regarded as sets and that for those departments that prefer the free form
approach that some of these sets on the form could in fact be "empty sets." An observation
suggests that simply by putting boxes on a form we were in fact setting forth a requirement of
some sort and then she wondered whether such a de facto requirement should go through the full
UCF. It was noted that there are probably a lot of things we are doing that will have to go
through the full UCF and that Joe’s successor as Chair of UCF will inherit this document that we
are creating much as Jim Tait inherited the problem of creating a constitution for UCF.
The question was raised as to whether or not there is still such a thing, at Southern, as a
'concentration' or a 'specialization' and how that is different from a formal minor? After some
amount of discussion with numerous examples given from various departments it was
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determined that several departments do indeed have this but we were not sure whether or not
they should officially be called 'concentrations' or 'specializations'. Upon consulting the
catalogue, it was noted that specializations/concentrations seem to be rather important to some
departments, Art being a good example. Someone noted that until very recently minors did not
appear on transcripts either and it was reiterated that specializations/concentrations should
appear on transcripts and on diplomas too. We were not certain whether or not Banner could, or
would, do this but we all agreed that it should. As we continued to peruse the catalogue it was
determined that the term that should be used is 'specialization' rather than 'concentration.' It was
noted that although the term used clearly should be 'specialization' that there are some
discrepancies in the catalogue and that Geology, for one, continues to refer to this as a
'concentration.'
The meeting shifted to a discussion of the last UCF meeting. It was discussed that
members had gotten positive feedback from a number of people regarding our attempts to revise
the forms with a view to consistency. Then the topic of Learning Objectives versus Learning
Outcomes came up yet again. Rachael said that she would still like to see a forum of some sort
on the philosophical differences between Learning Objectives and Learning Outcomes. Mark
said that he had contacted Ken Gatske to get the document Ken wrote about this subject. The
conversation shifted to the motion made at the last UCF meeting regarding the creation of an Ad
Hoc Committee to review the Constitution and By-Laws. For clarity, Joe brought up the fact that
the various subcommittees of UCF are going to have to come up with formal bylaws because the
Faculty Senate wants them. A brief discussion of the rationale for this motion ensued and some
members would like to see examples of these discrepancies, as it was determined in some
instances, this is not actually a discrepancy but that some subcommittees are just not following
the constitution and that that is not the same thing as a discrepancy
Discussion returned to the motion made at the last UCF meeting and the committee
discussed whether or not they should be charged with this work. It was discussed that the bylaws
will in some way relate to the document that we are creating and also to the forms that we are
trying to bring consistency to. It was determined that by the nature of our work, we had
mastered the documents more than anyone else had to date. At this point it became obvious to
everyone that any committee charged with creating bylaws would have to master the forms that
we have spent nearly a year wrestling with and as the implications of that sank in there was a
moment of complete silence. When we recovered ourselves an animated discussion broke out
concerning our timeline for not only this semester but also next fall semester since it looks like
we may well still be in existence then. A number of parameters shaping this timeline were
discussed. We ended the meeting by agreeing about what items are on our agenda for our next
meeting and adjourned promptly at 10:50.
Minutes submitted by Michele Thompson
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Minutes 2/22/07 Ad Hoc Committee on the Standards Document.
The meeting started with a discussion about the perception of concentrations vs.
specializations across campus. Upon reviewing a document provided by Kim Laing that presents
an aspect of how they are distinguished within the Registrars office, the committee determined
that the UCF should hold a discussion regarding the definition of each, so that the larger body of
the UCF can come to a consensus.
The committee moved to a discussion of the “W” course addendum. After much
deliberation, it was determined that the draft did not reflect the intention of the “W” designation,
and that it should emphasize the responsibility of individual instructors to seek section approval
for either new, revised, or existing courses. The committee agreed that there should be specific
emphasis in the directions that state that a course is not approved as a “W”, but rather the
instructor is approved to teach a section of a given course as a “W” once they have fulfilled the
criteria included in the “W” Section Approval form (formerly the “W” Course Addendum). The
committee also discussed the need for some sort of tracking/database mechanism to both
communicate approval to the instructor, and keep record of those faculty who are approved to
teach “W” sections.
Minutes submitted by Rachael A. Vaters-Carr
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